The Way of All Fish: A Novel by Martha Grimes Page B

You’re sitting there bantering away, and you don’t even know what the hell we want.”
    “I figure you’ll tell me when the moment is ripe. Like a cataract.”
    “Cindy Sella—”
    Bobby slid down in his chair, looked at the ceiling. “She’s not one of mine.” He slid up. “I do not own Mackenzie-Haack. I do not own the controlling stock in this house. As you work your way up the publishing ladder, don’t you ever read the trades?”
    “ Publishers Weekly , yeah.”
    Bobby’s eyes raked the ceiling as if searching for clouds. “You read PW      ?” He laughed.
    “You just told us we should.”
    “If you were reading PW while I was vacationing in Australia—at your request—you’d know Mackenzie-Haack was taken over by two brothers from Dubai.”
    “Dubai? The fuck. I thought they put their money into racehorses and hotels. What conglomerate?”
    “D and D.”
    “What’s D and D?”
    “Dubai and Dodge.”
    “Dodge who?”
    “Dodge City.”
    Candy and Karl laughed and punched each other. “Dodge City! Who the hell’s the CEO? Randolph Scott?”
    Bobby smiled. “CEOs, plural. The Dubai brothers: Saad and Sahan bin Saeed.”
    “That sounds real Old West.”
    Bobby snickered. “The younger one’s into Westerns. He wears ten-gallon hats, and his horse’s bridle is studded with bullet casings from aRemington. These two thought it would be a friendly gesture to the U.S. to call it after Dodge City.”
    “Dodge wasn’t open to friendly gestures, last I heard. It had more gunfighters than anyplace. It had Wyatt Earp, too. So? You’re solid with this arrangement?”
    “Of course. As long as they keep their butts out of my business. Which they do because they’re rarely here, the Dubai boys, they’re always leaving for Dubai. I call them the Good-bye Boys.”
    Candy and Karl laughed. Karl said, “So you’re still running the show.”
    “Up to a point.” Bobby tried to be modest.
    “Where’s the point snap?”
    “Probably here.” Bobby held up the page with the catchy clause. He sank the Bluetooth around his ear, saying, “Dolly. Get me Jackson Sprague in legal— Legal? What? Legal meaning lawyer, Dolly. Sprague is Mackenzie-Haack’s senior counsel. Get him down here!” Had he been holding a telephone receiver, he could have slammed it into the cradle, but that pleasure was denied him, this being Bluetooth technology. Slamming it into his eardrum to gut the voice of Dolly would have been something, at least. Not finished, he yelled, “Dolly!”
    Dolly, whose name said it all, was blond, with bee-stung lips and a comely presence. In the open doorway, she kept her hand on the doorknob, in case she needed to slam it fast, and asked what he wanted. Now.
    “I want you to get hold of Bella Bond—”
    “Can’t. She’s gone to Block Island.”
    “Block Island? What in hell? Never mind. Get me her assistant, that Sandy something.”
    “Susie Archer. She’s not here. She’s gone to the Vineyard.” The doorknob was getting a shellacking.
    Bobby looked pained. “Then get me her other assistant. How many’s she got? A hundred and six?”
    “If you mean May Spinner, she’s not here, either. She just left for Boston.” With her free hand, Dolly held up a pink “While You Were Out” note as proof that she wasn’t inventing it.
    “Jesus. It’s only Tuesday. Do these people think Tuesday’s the new Friday?”
    Leaning against the door, Dolly gave the knob a hand job. She was not good with rhetorical questions. “I don’t know.”
    Bobby waved her away. “Just get Sprague, will you?”
    She made her exit, and the three of them agreed it was time for topping up drinks. Bobby hauled the Scotch over to Candy and Karl and poured.
    Two minutes into their drinks, Dolly reappeared. “Jackson Sprague says he’s already late for drinks at the Algonquin with an editor from, uh, Des Moines?”
    “Dubai, Dolly. They don’t have editors in Des Moines. Tell him to get his ass in